Les Poissons
by I.C. Weener
Summary: And now for the swerve.
1. Cloudy with a chance of Utenations

" _The only weapon that can stop them needs a driver."_

\- _The Legend of Zelda_ opening text crawl, 1986

" _Snort snort snort, oink oink oink."_

\- Waterblight Ganon

* * *

Princess Zelda and her sworn protector fled through the forest to escape the massacre of Hyrule Castle. Smoke and fire still burned through their senses. The clangs and screeches of berserk Guardians echoed all around them in the far off but menacing distance. Rain poured through the trees as if the goddess Hylia herself was crying down from the heavens for them. Or something else was trying to drown them.

The princess's hand lost its grip on her guard's ruby plate mail, sending her collapsing in the mud. She groveled over her knees, soaked to the bone and shivering in terror. Her floodgates came crashing down all at once.

"I'm a failure!" she screamed. "Why haven't my cursed powers awakened yet?"

The guard knelt in front of her to offer support. Her tears roared onto her protector's shoulder harder than the waterfall where she had first seen young Prince Sidon.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this! I used the Guardians and the Divine Beasts just like the prophecies said! Everything I've done has just led to disaster! Everyone was counting on me, and I couldn't help a single one of them! All of the people in the castle! Urbosa, Daruk, Revali… _**Link**_ … trapped in those _**THINGS**_! Even my father! I left them all to die!"

Mipha had herself to blame.

It was her fault the Hero of Legend had fallen. He had arrived in time to save her life from the Waterblight, but not in time to save Vah Ruta from infestation. It had been his soul sealed inside of the Divine Beast's control conduit that day, and the Master Sword now lay lost under a pit of Malice in Ruta's corrupted bowels. He had sacrificed his own life in her place in a foolish act of love.

As she had stood there watching in terror as the Blight hacked Link to pieces, as she had fled through Ruta's glowing red halls with sounds of horror ringing in her ears, her emotions burst into a thousand floods that all swept her in the same direction.

 _Protect the princess._

She wrapped her arms around Zelda to share her grief. Zelda sobbed in unbearable anguish and sorrow. Mipha remained quiet and let own her tears run hidden in the raindrops washing down her face, forcing herself to remain the strong one. Hours ago she had felt sorry for making her father worry about her as she boarded Vah Ruta. Now Zelda didn't have any father to worry about her.

For the first time in her life, Mipha found herself as speechless as Link.

The rain pellets dropping beside them suddenly snarled like a wild boar. Mipha and Zelda watched in horror as a patch of mist glowed ghostly blue and twisted into a grotesque semi-solid form.

Waterblight Ganon's eye gleamed murderously toward the Zora princess first and the Hylian princess second. He had returned to finish the job, and to carve out a small bonus along the way.

Mipha lowered her head and breathed like a swimmer about to take the most dangerous dive of her life. All of her fear had been exhausted when she was first ambushed by the Waterblight. All of her sorrow had been exhausted in her long, agonizing retreat from Vah Ruta. She knew now this was the last chance she would ever have to pass on her wisdom.

"Princess, I never finished saying what I was trying to tell you when we were on the mountain."

She brushed the soaked golden hair away from Zelda's face to help her see more clearly.

"When I needed to use my healing powers," Mipha said with a lump growing in her throat, "I would always try to focus on… who I cared about the most."

Mipha stood up from the mud. She glanced up at Waterblight Ganon with an empty stare, wondering if her own powers were worth anything now that Link was gone.

"Mipha, no! This is suicide!" Zelda shook her head as she pleaded. She sounded almost like him in his final moments. "You don't have to do this! You're the only one I have left!"

Mipha cautiously drew the Lightscale Trident from the back of her oracle toga. She offered Zelda a look of remorse hidden behind a small forced smile.

"I'm sorry, princess. A good leader can't keep running from her responsibilities."

Her webbed fingers clutched the pole of the ceremonial weapon for dear life. She raised the trident so the central prong shielded the space between her eyes. She shared just one more small thought with Zelda before she was ready to make her final sacrifice.

"If I was never meant to face my fate with Ruta, maybe I was meant to face it with you."

The Waterblight drew back his massive mechanical spear. Mipha charged with all of her might toward a cloudy and desperate future.

* * *

 _Author's note: Will Ganon be able to cut the fish and shelf the elf in one fell swoop? Or will Zelda learn that love can be a slippery slope in time to awaken her powers and save them both?_

 _Well I don't goddamn know. I just wrote this because I thought the premise sounded neat and it utilized the game's cutscenes in an interesting way. Use your imagination._


	2. The Champions' Ballad

" _Being here like this makes me so relaxed. I could do this forever."_

" _I feel more calm when I'm behind the wheel of a car."_

" _I wasn't talking about the fish, stupid."_

\- Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus visiting an aquarium

* * *

Mipha nervously approached the Divine Beast's altar. Zelda waited behind her with a mournful look washed over on her face.

The Zora princess reached out to the terminal and touched her palm to the pulsing stone. Concentrating, she cleansed the Beast of the dormant disease that still lingered in her veins. The ancient Sheikah pedestal began glowing the same color as Mipha's healing aura.

The water swirled in small waves around her ankles. The sound made her mind drift back to that hazy afternoon in the rain.

She was collapsed in the mud and crawling back up, pushing herself to fight the Waterblight and protect her princess to the bitter end. But then Zelda threw herself between the two combatants, screaming Mipha's name as if it was the only thing she knew. Mipha became blind for a second, and then Waterblight Ganon was simply gone. All that remained was steam in the rain.

Once Zelda understood how to channel her powers, they rounded up all the troops who could still fight and made a final desperate assault to win back the castle. Zelda called her most elite Sheikah scouts and her remaining Hylian knights to her aid, while Mipha requested her father's most skilled Zora marines to march straight through Central Hyrule. The battle was long and tragic, but the forces of Light barely managed to win. Calamity Ganon met his ultimate demise not by the edge of the blue Master Sword, but by the prongs of the silver Lightscale Trident.

The corrupted Divine Beasts and Guardians ceased their rampage the instant their master was no more. All that could be done then was clearing the rubble away and trying to give closure to all the souls who had been lost in the war. Mipha started with Vah Naboris for Zelda's sake. She left Vah Ruta for last, knowing she would be the most difficult.

A circle of transparent green flames flickered over the water near Mipha. Link's freed spirit finally appeared beside her. He didn't try to tell corny jokes like Daruk, or go into a hefty speech about honor and sacrifice like Urbosa. He only hovered above the ripples in his dim green aura, smiling and silently telling her, " _Thank you._ "

As he departed, she felt a faint trickle on the back of her webbed hand. He was leaving her with one simple gift: Link's Courage. She had exhausted all of her own helping Zelda seal Calamity Ganon back into the abyss. Now she would have his to help her live on in this new world.

"That's the last of them," Mipha said with a heavy sigh, turning back toward Zelda. "Naboris, Rudania, Medoh, and now Ruta. Now they can be at peace."

Mipha knelt down to retrieve Link's former possessions that had been left abandoned in the shallows. The Master Sword and the Sheikah Slate could both be returned where they belonged now that the war was over. The Hylian Shield would join the others on the memorial.

She quietly waded through the water toward Zelda once she was finished.

"Mipha, I'm sorry I put you through all of this," the Hylian princess said with her head held low. When she raised her eyes, she saw Mipha offering her a small smile of forgiveness.

"I'm sorry I let you down the first time," said the Zora Champion.

Zelda and Mipha walked out of Ruta's temple entrance and back into the daylight. They looked over their wounded kingdom closely by each other's sides from the shrine's spillway. The sun was setting on the ruins, but a more peaceful future was just beginning to dawn.

The Divine Beasts were only the start of their work. They gazed into the horizon together as they thought about the long and arduous journey of healing the rest of the realm. They gave each other a nurturing glance before setting out, leaving the tragic past behind them and walking back into the living world hand in hand.

* * *

 _Author's note: I basically just wrote this second chapter because it popped in my head what Link's spirit power would be. And it's actually kind of sweet and subtle and not as OP as you'd think. I was debating whether I wanted to make this about Mipha getting ready to fight Ganon, or the aftermath to it. I decided this was a nice change of pace._

 _I'm pretty impressed with how this turned out considering the first draft I started working on was literally just the song from the Little Mermaid with the lyrics changed so it's about Waterblight Ganon expressing his joys of butchering Mipha._


End file.
